All the Arts, All the Time

Gustavo Dudamel is Gramophone magazine's cover boy

July 28, 2011 | 1:15
pm

Gustavo Dudamel can add another major story to his burgeoning collection of press clippings. The 30-year-old conductor, who serves as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, occupies the prestigious front cover of the most recent issue of Gramophone.

The British publication is a leading magazine focusing on classical and jazz recordings. Times music critic Mark Swed penned the story, reporting from Walt Disney Concert Hall.

Gramophone can be difficult to find for some American readers and has a limited online presence so here are a few choice selections to give you an idea of what the young maestro discussed.

The article focuses on the repertoire of Dudamel's forthcoming first recordings with Sweden's Gothenburg Symphony. (DG will release the recordings of Dudamel conducting the works of Nielsen, Bruckner and Sibelius in August.)

The conductor also shares his thoughts about music and conducting as well as his relationships with the three orchestras that he leads -- the L.A. Phil, the Gothenburg and the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra in Venezuela.

On the subject of his tenure in Gothenburg, which will conclude next season, Dudamel says, "It is a culture very far from my Latin soul ... but when I arrived there it was magic."

Speaking about Carl Nielsen's Fourth Symphony, the conductor described it as "one of the most amazing things I have ever conducted in my life." The symphony was a key point of collaboration between Dudamel and his mentor, Dr. José Antonio Abreu, the founder of Venezuela's El Sistema program.

On the subject of his penchant for taking slower-than-normal tempos on certain pieces, such as Tchaikovsky's "Pathétique" Symphony, Dudamel explained that "right now I need the space to sustain things, and then in the future, maybe it will be faster."

Speaking about his last season at Gothenburg, the conductor said that he plans to continue working with the orchestra and that he wants to record some music by living Swedish composers, including Anders Hillborg.

The magazine also includes first-person sidebars on Dudamel by Venezuelan pianist Gabriela Montero and Gramophone deputy editor Sarah Kirkup.